I thought it was useful when we had a language with neutral, descriptive terms for which the definitions were understood. Now everyone gets to make up whatever meanings they like, so as to be Offended. Did somebody put the Red Queen in charge while I was napping? (Oh, wait ... was that racist, or homophobic?)

15 posted on 08/08/2008 8:46:00 AM PDT by Tax-chick
("And the rum is for all your good vices.")

Deconstructionism
A term tied very closely to postmodernism, deconstructionism is a challenge to the attempt to establish any ultimate or secure meaning in a text.

Basing itself in language analysis, it seeks to “deconstruct” the ideological biases (gender, racial, economic, political, cultural) and traditional assumptions that infect all histories, as well as philosophical and religious “truths.”

Deconstructionism is based on the premise that much of human history, in trying to understand, and then define, reality has led to various forms of domination - of nature, of people of color, of the poor, of homosexuals, etc.

Like postmodernism, deconstructionism finds concrete experience more valid than abstract ideas and, therefore, refutes any attempts to produce a history, or a truth.

In other words, the multiplicities and contingencies of human experience necessarily bring knowledge down to the local and specific level, and challenge the tendency to centralize power through the claims of an ultimate truth which must be accepted or obeyed by all.